I’m sure that should just be the title of my blog. You People Are Pissing Me Off. Also the title of my autobiography and the inscription on my tombstone, two things my father likes to point out when faced with an undeniable self-truth: “That’s should be the title of your autobiography.”
Another recent revelation came in the form of an email I wrote to said father, in response to an email he sent out to the family where he explained that he had struggled his whole life with being a success. How important it was to him. How much pressure he put on himself. How he too often felt less than perfect. I replied that while I didn’t think I was any healthier than he was, I was, in fact, my own favorite person. We’re not sure where that came from. Some would call it egocentric, maybe even selfish, but it’s much more complicated than that.
I’m an introvert. Not many people actually knows what that means. Most people, or at least most extroverts, think it means you’re shy, or quiet. It doesn’t. It also doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. But in a nutshell, it means I don’t like crowds, loud noises, small talk, parties, lots of stimuli or more or less anything that doesn’t interest me. I prefer writing to speaking. I prefer to work on my own, not in a group. I need time to think and expand on topics before I have an opinion about them. I prefer to spend time alone than almost anything. Yes, I know, it sounds very anti-social.
The fact is, most introverts are highly intelligent, very sensitive, emotional beings. We just don’t have any patience for your bullshit and we need a lot of down time.
We’re also often perfectionists. We like things the way we like things.
The upside is we don’t need, or want, a lot of supervision. We’re highly motivated, assuming we’re working on something we give a shit about, and we’re very creative. If you leave us alone, we’ll get a lot of shit done. Trust me on this.
The downside is, the rest of you are pissing us off.
Here’s the way it works for me: I am a romantic cynic.
It’s not as contradictory as you might think. Let’s start with the romantic part. I have a firm idea of how life should work. How it should look. How it should feel. It’s an idealist view of the world.
But I’m also a cynic, because I’m smart enough to know that everyone is just looking out for themselves, that power corrupts, that governments lie, and that most people will fuck you over as long as it benefits them.
Consequently, the world doesn’t work the way I think it should, and I have very little faith in it changing. So I do what I can to not involve myself in the drama of things I can’t control and instead put my energies into things I can control.
This is why on a daily basis, most of you, are pissing me off, and why people from all walks of life, call me Angry Dave.
I’m really not that angry. Just irritated.
